


This Minimal Space Between

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (I mean not entirely beta read), Backstory, Developing Relationship, Internal Conflict, M/M, Not Beta Read, Snapshots, look I dunno what relationship tag to use here dont at me pls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 23:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: It didn’t make much of a difference what he was called until now.Connor,on Blake’s lips, on his hands when they touch each other.Connor,low and soft and sweet in his ear at parties in the exact tone that they both know makes his legs weaker than an afternoon skating drills.Connor,shaking apart in the air on impact in the same way he himself does under Blake’s fingers. Naming and unnaming at once. These moments are when he knows how beautiful it is to be named._______________________________Whiskey/LAX Bro, inspired by (what else) the most recent update. Whiskey's POV.





	This Minimal Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> just wanted to take a moment and reflect on how much I'd dearly love to know LAX Bro's real name

________________________

 

In the Haus he is Whiskey. Here, with Blake, he is Connor.

He doesn’t mind the nickname most of the time. Most of the time he is surly and monosyllabic and quiet, his mouth cut in a flat line as if from the stroke of a knife. Most of the time he’s laced up and burns down the ice the way whiskey burns your throat and buries the puck in the net straight, no chaser needed. “Whiskey” makes sense. It fits the act he puts on, so he doesn’t argue with it. 

“Connor,” though— 

It didn’t make much of a difference what he was called until now.

_ Connor, _ on Blake’s lips, on his hands when they touch each other.  _ Connor  _ low and soft and sweet in his ear at parties in the exact tone that they both know makes his legs weaker than an afternoon skating drills.  _ Connor, _ shaking apart in the air on impact in the same way he himself does under Blake’s fingers. Naming and unnaming at once. These moments are when he knows how beautiful it is to be named. 

____________

 

The lacrosse team call Blake Howie, and when Connor asked about it the first time they met, Blake smiles around the straw in his drink and winks. Connor’s stomach swoops like driving too fast down a hill.

“I got a good arm,” Blake tells him. “It means someone with a hard shot.”

He says, “Yeah?” and tilts his chin up. These early days they didn’t know each other well, these days when he wasn’t sure if he could be Connor when the lacrosse team hated him on principle, these early days he wore Whiskey like it was a challenge. He hung out with them this first time because his friends from high school made the team and invited him over, and they’d caught him up on the hockey/lax team rivalry the whole walk from his dorm to the house.

These early days, Blake looks him up and down, tells him, “Yeah. I score when I want to,” and Connor thinks  _ game on. _

____________

 

This is how the game is played:

Blake outside washing his car in September as Whiskey goes to the Haus after class for MarioKart as mandated by Ransom and Holster. A spray of water on his neck, Blake blinking innocently, Whiskey casually giving him the finger. 

Connor watching a movie in the basement with Chads R. and S. while Blake types away at his computer.  _ nice shorts _ pops up on his phone. He sends back,  _ like what you see? _ and Blake flushes red.

November, both of them in Annie’s, sitting a deliberate table or so apart from each other.

Whiskey, framed in the Haus kitchen window with his foot propped up on the countertop, tying his shoes and ignoring how he can feel Blake’s eyes on him from across the street.

The fateful day in February when Connor shows up to their opening game with some more of his high school friends and Blake nearly gets brained in the head because they’re looking at each other. Connor wiggles his fingers in a wave, one hand in the back pocket of his best jeans. He gets an open mouthed  _ wow _ in response.

Blake in the stands a week later in retaliation, making the rest of the team testy and chippy as Whiskey sinks shot after shot. His mouth is dry the whole game.

And then— 

A month after, both of them hiding in the lax boardgame closet while campus police bust the party. RISK pokes a sharp corner into his back.

And then— 

Blake shifts, upsetting a carefully balanced box of LIFE. Connor pins it against the wall but elbows him in the process. 

“Sorry,” he whispers. He trips over the word; he hadn’t realized how close they were.

Blake doesn’t respond right away. His mouth is parted like he just realized the same thing. Slowly, carefully so as to keep from toppling any other games, Blake brushes Connor’s hair off his face.

His fingers linger.

Connor wants his fingers in his mouth.

“Been meaning to do that,” Blake whispers back. He takes his hand back, delicately sweeping the curve of Connor’s cheek as he does. “All night. Longer.”

“Longer than all night?” Connor asks. He makes deliberate eye contact. “How long is longer?”

“Well—” A loud slam from outside and he breaks off.

“Because I,” Connor interrupts, moving closer. Blake swallows. His hands come back to Connor’s face, to his shoulders, the point where his neck and shoulders meet, cup the back of his neck. Connor touches his chin and smooths his thumb over his bottom lip. 

He does the same with his lips.

“I’ve been meaning to do this for months now.”

And then— 

The game of LIFE nearly falls again. Connor impatiently sets the box on the shelf and turns until he has Blake against the wall. Blake pulls him closer. 

They don’t hear when the police leave.

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ come over? _

already on my way

____________

 

Blake’s team takes it well enough. Chad S. tells Connor he’s happy they finally figured it out because it had started affecting their respective games, and there’s some chirping and ribbing, but, aside from being given a nickname, there’s no change to how they’re treated by the lax bros.

“We’re happy for you, Goose,” Chad R. says in Econ 203. “I mean it. You both deserve something good, you know?”

Connor says, “Yeah,” and smiles. 

When they’re alone in the kitchen he asks Blake why they’re calling him Goose and he laughs, tangling their legs under the table.

“It’s a type of pass,” Blake says, shaking his head. “Ground to basket. It’s like when you airball the puck and bat it down during your games, you know?”

It dawns on him. “It’s a link between lacrosse and hockey,” he says, and his boyfriend grins at him.

They talk a little about the Haus and Blake asks what he wants to do about his teammates. He’s out, technically; he’d quietly done a subtle Instagram post on National Coming Out Day two years ago and had come out to his parents a year before that. It was part of the Samwell appeal, “one in four, maybe more.” Bitty’s strong in the running for captain next year so being open about their relationship wouldn’t be too problematic, probably, from that standpoint. He’s not planning on re-closeting himself, but … 

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I don’t think they’d give my shit for dating a guy, but.” 

Blake takes his hand. “We don’t have to.”

“No, I mean,” Connor says, shaking his head. “It’s hard to explain. I’m not  _ loud _ about it. And you play for the other team—” Blake smirks. “—shut up, you know what I mean.” He pauses for a moment to kiss the inside of Blake’s wrist. “You know one of our party rituals is shotgunning a beer and yelling  _ fuuuuck the lax team _ right?”

“We’ve started taking shots whenever that happens. Gets you schwasty,” Blake says with a shrug. 

“I believe it.”

“They hate us, I get it.” Blake sits back in his chair. “And I know you’re thinking NHL, or you’d better be, and that’s a whole other thing too.”

Connor smiles despite himself. “‘I’d better be,’ huh? Why’s that?”

“You’re too good not to,” he says frankly. The look in his eyes tell Connor not to argue on this. “I’m serious, I’ve hate-watched enough hockey games to know. You’ve got good stick control.”

“If you ever wanna refine your handling skills, I can put on a one-on-one clinic,” Connor says, biting down a grin as Blake goes red. “NHL is the goal, but maybe not just—”

A gentle nudge on his shin under the table. “Hey,” Blake says softly. “You don’t have to compromise on this. You’re not ready for them to know, that’s okay by me. I don’t have to play with them. I guarantee I’ll never have any heart to hearts with Birkholtz or Oluransi or Bittle about us, I don’t need them to like me.”

Connor nods and tries for something like relief, and it must work because Blake’s face clears. What he doesn’t say is,  _ maybe I want them to. _

____________

 

“Who you texting who’s got you blushing like that?” Tango asks, elbowing him.

Whiskey rolls his eyes. “No one.”

Tango hums. “Sure, sure. Just be careful, Lardo and them, they’re ruthless with the fines.”

“I’ll be quiet about it,” he says pointedly. Tango mimes locking his lips.

____________

 

Ransom and Holster throw a kegster after they lose the playoffs. No one really wants to celebrate, but everyone halfheartedly runs streamers through the staircase railing and across the ceiling and help open up the living room floor plan for “ease of traffic,” as Holster calls it. Dex helps Bitty bake a dozen or so pies, about which Whiskey says nothing, and he himself ropes off the upstairs bedrooms with Nursey.

He tries not to look out the window too much. He wonders what the lax team is doing tonight.

“Hey, Earth to Whiskey,” Nursey says, frowning. “I got monopoly on being the spacey one. You okay?”

“‘M fine,” he says.

Nursey follows his gaze toward the lax house and rubs the back of his neck. Apprehension tingles down Whiskey’s spine. 

“It’s a stupid rivalry. You know that right?” 

This is so not what he was expecting that Whiskey nearly drops the roll of caution tape. “What?”

Now Nursey looks uneasy. “Look, just. I dunno how to put it. You’re doing incredible, Bitty was saying — the only person who had as many points frog year was Jack. And  _ he’s  _ leading scorer with the Falconers, so. And I know some players on our team don’t like the fact that you hang with them, but seriously, dude, it’s fine. We aren’t gonna jump you, or anything.”

“I know,” Whiskey tells him, but inwardly he’s wondering if he’s left any clues out in the open or texted Blake under the table or spoke about him in his sleep. This speech feels practiced, planned, in a way he doesn’t like. 

“Do you?” Nursey scans his face. Whiskey does his best not to shrink under it. “We got your back, bro.”

He says, “I got yours too,” because it’s safe, and Nursey claps him on the shoulder right over a hickey.

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ have fun at the party be safe _

_ across the street if you need anything _

____________

 

This is how the party goes:

Whiskey mans the tub juice in the bathroom. Two people throw up in the toilet and then ask for another glass, and he fills their Solo cups with water and sends them on their way.

Smoke drifts in from an open window. It makes his head pound.

Chowder swaps out with him out so they both can have a breather. Whiskey stands along the wall awkwardly, letting the music pulse along with his heartbeat.

Lardo creams four different people at beer pong while Whiskey watches.

He drinks two full cups of tub juice and the third time Chowder sees him, Chowder cuts him off. “You’re done for tonight,” he says. Whiskey ignores the concern in his voice.

For thirty minutes he tries to make it through the throng to go outside and for thirty minutes Tango asks him questions about the artists they’re bumping through the Haus.

Around 1 AM, someone bangs on the door and yells, “Police!” Everyone scatters. Whiskey spots what looks like Chads S. and R. running back across the street, laughing their heads off. He thinks, maybe, he’d like to be running back with them. 

The party is in full swing thirty seconds after they find no one at the door.

Two girls on the volleyball team bump into him, giggling, and he steadies them. They ask his name and he tells them “Connor.”

____________

 

He ends up in the kitchen around 2.

Bitty stares at him when he pushes through the door, a death grip on his phone, and Whiskey holds up his hands. “I’m unarmed,” he says. 

Someone says something like  _ Bits? _ and he looks around for a solid two minutes before realizing it came from Bitty’s phone. “I’ll call you back,” Bitty says quietly before ending the call. “What’s up?”

“Needed some quiet,” Whiskey says absently. “Loud in there.”

“It is, huh,” Bitty agrees. “Oh, steady there—” 

The kitchen dips around them and then Bitty’s got a hand under his arm, snags, something from the counter, then carries them both through the living room and the front door to the porch. He sets Whiskey down on the front step. The cold of the concrete against his thighs is a good contrast to how muzzy his head feels.

“Connor, you okay? Have you had enough water?”

“Think Ransom had too much fun with the tub juice” is all he says, squeezing his eyes shut.

Bitty hands him something, says “be right back,” and darts back inside. 

Whiskey’s hands explore whatever it is Bitty gave him. It feels delicate almost, and crumbling. His pinky finger nudges against something soft and mushy and he about laughs when he realizes it’s pie.

Of course, pie. He thinks about Bitty and pie and the fact that Bitty called him “Connor” instead of “Whiskey” before he went inside, and tries to figure how all of those things relate with hockey. He can’t figure it out with how drunk he is right now. 

He thinks about Blake instead.

The door opens and closes behind him, along with a swell of party noise. 

“You were right,” Bitty says. He nudges Connor’s feet as he sits down. “Something about, ‘this is how Shitty did it, Bitty, don’t ruin the in memoriam.’ Lord. Those two are gonna kill me.”

Connor doesn’t say anything, but he takes a bite of pie with his eyes still shut. Bitty seems to relax some at this.

“I got you water,” he says quietly. “And don’t worry, I’m sober and so is Dex, so we can help you get back if you want us to.”

He is so tired.

He wonders if Blake’s awake, if he should say anything to Bitty. Sober him whispers he doesn’t want to, not yet, not drunk like this. This is a bigger thing than that.

“Okay to sit for a bit,” Connor mumbles. He spills most of the water down his shirt, but it feels good there, too. He cracks open his eyes to see the damage.

“I’ve seen worse,” Bitty says, smiling slightly. “We’ve got you, okay?”

Connor says, “Okay,” and they sit there until Chowder kicks everyone out.

____________

 

**Text message:**

hey so

I dunno if you remembered or not, but

it’s our one month <3

_ <3 you’re sappier than you let on, Whisk _

it’s more like, I really like you

so much it’s hard to keep in

it’s better letting it out

_ so much better _

____________

 

Connor takes him out to a little Italian bistro in town. They order ridiculously fancy things and share mozzarella sticks and take bets on how long it’ll be until they get cut off from the free garlic bread.

“They’re  _ free, _ babe,” Blake says. He makes an expansive gesture that nearly knocks over the water pitcher, which Connor grabs to hide his thrill at  _ babe _ . “You can’t get cut off from free things.”

“Maybe there’s fine print?” he suggests. “Like how you can only have two free samples at Annie’s.”

Blake rolls his eyes. “‘Fine print.’ We can check the menu but I doubt it.”

_ God I love you, _ Connor thinks, but he just smiles and eats his linguini.

____________

 

He tells him later in Blake’s bedroom with Blake’s body on top of him and Blake’s mouth kissing his throat. He tells him and he draws back, shirt halfway over his head, Connor holding onto his hips with needy fingers. Blake sits up and looks at him deliberately.

It feels like being named all over again. Seen.

“You do?” Blake asks. He seems almost shy; he lowers his chin and looks down at him through his eyelashes. 

Connor pulls his shirt up, takes Blake’s hand, and presses it over his heartbeat.

“Yeah,” he says. “I really do. You don’t have to say it back, I just wanted you to know.”

Blake tilts his head. “I’m really much better—” he spreads out his fingers; they brush Connor’s nipple. “—at showing—” he moves his hand up, bunching up the fabric. Connor all but rips his shirt off, then goes to take off Blake’s as well. Blake stops his hand and takes it off himself and that’s too much, just that little movement. “—than telling.”

“That so?” He says it like a challenge. Connor goes back to teasing the zipper on Blake’s jeans and he grinds down smoothly, just once, and Connor mouths a small  _ oh. _ Blake leans back over him and sucks against his neck.

“Just lie back,” Blake whispers, and he slides off Connor’s lap onto the floor in front of him. “I’m not good with these kinds of words. Let me show you how I feel about you.”

“Okay,” Connor whispers back. “Show me,” he says, and Blake unzips his jeans.

____________

 

Connor’s there when Blake makes captain. At the afterparty the other guys on the team start a beer pong tournament that Connor privately thinks Lardo could sweep, easy, but after he wins he pulls Blake in for a kiss. Chad R. huffily demands a rematch. Connor shakes his head, laughing, and says, “Sorry. Little busy right now.”

“Ayyy, get it Goose!” someone calls.

“Goose,” he thinks, he could get used to. He blows the crowd a kiss and leads Blake upstairs.

____________

 

He watches the Cup playoffs with Chowder, Nursey, Dex, Ford, and Tango and when it happens, he drops his phone. Dex and Nursey loudly argue over bets and who owes whom what — Dex said a magazine interview, Nursey said they’d come out in a post game — and Chowder and Ford text the groupchat in a frenzy.

Connor goes outside.

____________

 

**Text message:**

can I come over?

_ was just about to offer _

_ yes _

_ always _

____________

 

“They keep comparing me to him,” Connor says when Blake opens the door. “If the NHL thinks I’m gay I won’t be able to play.”

“Hey,” Blake says, his forehead creased. He steps aside and closes the door behind them, then draws him close to his chest. “It’ll work out.”

“It won’t, they’re being loud about this and if they keep—”

“It will.” His statement is heavily undercut by the worry in his face. “It will be, okay? I promise it will be.”

It’s difficult to articulate exactly why this doesn’t help his anxiety. Connor spares a moment to be bitter about the fact that, for anyone else, Jack Zimmermann kissing a man on national TV would be a fairytale come true, a sign of better things coming in a historically homophobic sport. And yet.

There is too much happening for everything to work out right now.

Blake bundles him up in blankets and makes popcorn enough to feed a small army. He doesn’t offer any preference for shows or movies, so Blake alternates between some lacrosse movie and Netflix baking shows and  _ Parks and Rec. _ It’s soothing, being in his arms, the chatter washing over them. It makes him both want to name this ache in his chest and hide from it forever.

He left his phone at the Haus. With any luck everyone’s too preoccupied with Bitty and Jack to notice his absence.

The sun goes down. 

____________

 

They wake up to a loud cheer coming from the Haus around 10 PM. 

“Cup celebration,” Connor says sleepily. “I should. I’ve gotta be there for that.”

Blake touches his chin, his cheek. “Are you sure,” he asks softly.

“I should. They’ll notice, and I am, honestly, I’m happy for them.” Blake raises his eyebrows. Connor rolls his eyes. “I mean it.”

He nods, considering his words. “If you need me,” he says quietly. 

Connor kisses him. “I know where you’ll be.”

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ hey I saw this wicked lax move today this is what you look like when you play _

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ good morning babe _

_ hope you see something beautiful _

_ other than yourself in the mirror _

_ cuz you’re beautiful _

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ you there? I love you _

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ been a few days you good? _

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ hey I saw this cloud today this is what you look like when you play _

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ call me when you can _

_ you’re worrying me _

____________

 

**Text message:**

_ Connor are you upset with me? _

no

_ he lives _

_ where’d you go? _

I’m sorry for going radio silent

I needed time to get my head on right

_ it’s okay _

_ just _

_ Connor I’m in this with you _

_ I want to walk this with you _

_ I want to be there to catch you if you need me to _

_ I understand the need for space and quiet, I promise I do _

_ but I can’t do those things if you freeze me out _

I’m so sorry

I’ll be better at this, I promise

there’ll never be a time when I’m mad at you

_ nah don’t say that babe _

_ we might fight over something stupid and you’ll be mad but I promise I’ll always make it up to you _

think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me 

I love you too

____________

 

**Text message:**

and thank you, for catching me

____________

 

“How’re we doing this?” Blake shouts over the party. Connor hooks his fingers in his belt loop, tugs him flush against himself, and murmurs low and fast and filthy in his ear. Pressure pokes against his thigh. He presses a kiss to Blake’s pulse in his throat; it’s sloppy because he’s grinning. 

“Do you mean,” Connor says, teasing, tracing the panes of Blake’s chest over his t-shirt. His boyfriend follows the movement with his pupils blown wide. “Something like that?”

“Uh. Not what I meant, but,” Blake says. He takes Connor’s bottom lip between his teeth and bites gently. “I like your ideas.”

He walks Connor backward until he’s flat again the boardgame closet, his hands low on Connor’s hips under his shirt. Connor shivers under his touch. Blake takes this as an invitation, tangling their fingers together and pinning Connor’s hand against the door. 

Connor wants more of him. There’s too much space separating them and too many people in this room for how close Connor wants him. This expression on Blake’s face, the way the music thumps and electrifies the air around them, the low lighting, all of this makes all of his nerve endings one hundred times more sensitive to every brush of Blake’s lips on his and his neck and his shoulder. He wants to be soft and full and named underneath Blake’s hands. 

He tells him this. He says, “Show me again why they call you Howie.”

Blake kisses him and does. 

____________

 

This, in brief, is how it goes:

Tripping over jeans on the way to the bed—

Shirts halfway off while Connor kisses down Blake’s stomach—

Blake, straddling him, rolling against him smooth and achingly good—

Whispers and wants spoken into being and acted upon— 

And then crashing into each other, and crashing with each other, and names and mouths and skin crashing together in this minimal space between them. 

____________

 

He asks about it after. “What did you mean,” he whispers against Blake’s shoulder. “What were you asking, before?”

Blake shifts, nudging Connor until Connor climbs on top of him. He drags blankets over them both as he does so. 

_ He is so beautiful, _ Connor thinks to himself, and tells him. 

Blake brushes his hair to the side, eyes softer and mouth more tender than ever. “I meant, how are we doing this this year? You and me.”

Connor tenses. “I don’t. I’m still not ready to tell them.”

“No! No I meant,” Blake says hurriedly, eyes wide. “I meant, I was going to ask if you wanted a key.”

Whatever he thought he was going to say, this was not it. “A key?”

“Yeah.” Blake runs his fingers up and down Connor’s sides, his back. It’s soothing. “I asked the guys, they agree you’re here enough that you may as well have one. If you want. No pressure, though, and I mean that; if this is too much at once, don’t feel like you have to say yes.”

Not even in the top ten of what he thought he was going to say. 

For a few seconds Connor thinks about showing versus telling and the small spaces where the two overlap and decides, maybe, this is one of those moments. He thinks about how solid the key would be in his hand. 

“If you want me to have it,” he says finally, “I want to have it.”

Blake’s smile is so wide and so bright Connor imagines they can see it from the Haus. The idea of this doesn’t make him as nervous as he would’ve thought it might. 

“I do,” Blake tells him. He punctuates his next sentence with his lips and presses promises against Connor’s collarbone and cheek and to that hollow under his throat. “I really, really do.”

____________

 

Their season starts. He helps Bitty haze the waffles and draws a shot glass on Nursey’s cast instead of his name and draws hockey sticks and lacrosse fields in his Econ notebook. Tango notices the doodles when they compare notes from lecture, but for once, he doesn’t ask about it. 

He tries to spend more time with the team this year. The first few weeks he goes to every meeting Bitty calls, the formal and informal and the “this is an excuse for me to procrastinate on my thesis” impromptu food parties. He still feels weird about the abundance of pie in the Haus. He’s working on figuring out why. 

It’s going pretty well, honestly. He’s found a blend of Whiskey and Connor that he can be with Tango, Ford, and Nursey and he thinks maybe right now that’s enough. He likes being everyone else’s Whiskey well enough, but sometimes it’s nice to be Connor. 

Then in early October a reporter from  _ The Swallow _ corners him outside his Econ 339 class and everything goes to shit. 

____________

 

“Excuse me, can you answer some questions?”

“I’ve got to get to class—”

“How has leadership changed since Eric Bittle became captain?”

“Uh, he’s been doing really well—”

“Has his open sexuality caused any intra-team issues? How do you feel about being in the locker room with him?”

“Sexuality doesn’t make you a bad hockey player or a bad captain and definitely doesn’t make you a bad per—”

“What can you say to the reports that there are numerous LGBT players on the Samwell Men’s Hockey team?”

“What? How — why do you—?”

“We’ve recently heard about several parties at which partygoers have witnessed hockey players dancing with other men—” 

“I don’t — look, I have to go to—”

“What do you say to rumors that your similarities to Jack Zimmermann may go deeper than your on ice skills?”

“Leave me  _ alone!” _

____________

 

He runs.

____________

 

**Text message:**

hey I need you to catch me

if you can

please

____________

 

Blake calls him seconds after. 

“Babe?”

“Hey.” He thinks he’s crying. He’s a goddamn college cliche, crying in the student union.

“What’s going on? Where are you?”

Connor wipes his eyes on his sleeve. “Nothing’s going on. I’m in the union.”

“Stay there? I can be there in five—”

“No,” he says. It comes out something like a strangled yell. Someone across the room stares and he turns to face the wall. “No,” he repeats, quieter. “I don’t want to be — I can’t be loud about this. Not right now.”

“Loud about what?”

That person’s eyes seem to carve a hole in his back. He feels it as vividly as he feels a check from behind, and it knocks the wind from him. “I can’t talk about it here.”

“Babe, d’you—”

“Don’t call me that!”

A floorboard creaks behind him as the other person leaves the room. 

He hadn’t meant to say it like that. His voice echoes around him and he thinks for a wild second that it’s noisier than anything he’s ever heard.

When Blake speaks again, it sounds like his words come from very far away. “I’m sorry,” he says, and this steals his breath even worse than before. “I don’t know what to do.”

Connor wants to say something like,  _ there’s nothing to do, this is on me. _ Or even the truth, a simple  _ you don’t have to be sorry, it was  _ The Swallow, _ someone’s telling stories about us _ and maybe afterward  _ I like when you call me babe but not when people can hear you _ . 

He thinks he wants to reach a point where he can be called babe when people can hear them.

What he says is this: “I don’t either.”

What he means instead is this:  _ I haven’t grown up to be this public about loving a man. _

____________

 

Tango asks him what’s wrong a few times during practice. He shrugs each time and skates off, pretending to find Hall or Murray to ask them about his footwork. When he does they call him “Whiskey.” It settles uneasily on his shoulders.

“Connor,” he says, interrupting Hall’s analysis of his performance against Boston in last week’s game. Hall tilts his head to the side, impassive as always. “Today, just … if you don’t mind, please call me Connor.”

“You alright, son?” Hall asks. “Connor, if something’s wrong — well. I hope you feel like you can talk to us, if you want to. Bittle included.”

“I know,” Connor says. “Thanks coach.”

Hall frowns just so slightly. Connor doesn’t blame him; he didn’t believe himself either.

Bitty calls a meeting at the end of practice and Connor looks at the ice next to his left skate to avoid looking directly at him. 

“Just wanted to remind y’all that the rugby team’s having their annual midterm week kegster next week. I better not be hearing anything about any of y’all going to that, okay?” A murmur of assent ripples through the team. “Good. I swear more kids get busted there than any other party of the year, Jack said not even  _ The Swallow _ will go anymore—”

“Fine?” Dex says.  “Talking about your boyfriend during practice.”

Nursey taps his stick on the ice in agreement. Bitty rolls his eyes. 

Connor has no text messages when he checks his phone in the locker room.

____________

 

They have a week off for midterms. Connor alternates between his classes, his dorm, the library, and, occasionally, the floor in his room, where he studies the key Blake gave him. They haven’t broken up and neither of them is blocking the other, as far as he knows — he can still see all of Blake’s social media — but even so, it’s been more difficult to have any sort of lengthy conversation with him lately. They subsist on good morning and good night texts. 

He feels starved, almost. Like being around Blake is a physical ache he didn’t realize he needed met until he was missing him. 

The key fits comfortably in his hand. Connor hasn’t used it much, but every morning he makes sure he has it in his pocket at all times in case he ever needs to stop by. It’s more the symbolism of having it than anything else, really. The idea that Blake cares enough that he gave him this physical way into his life is better than any  _ I love you _ will ever be.

He’s thought about giving it back a few times. Every time he thinks it, though, some panicked something seizes his chest until he puts it back in his pocket.

_ Not even  _ The Swallow, Bitty had said. 

Connor’s out the door almost before he realizes he’s moving. 

____________

 

He passes Louis, Hops, and Bully on his way to the lax house.

“What’re you doing tonight?” he asks, partly because he’s curious and mostly because he wants to be asked the same thing back.

Louis says, “Thinking about the rugby party, you?” and Connor grins something sharp.

“On my way to ask my boyfriend to come with me,” he says.

“Cool!” Louis says, at the same time Hops wishes him good luck. Bully offers a fist bump and adds, “Maybe we’ll see you there?”

“Might just,” Connor replies. He crosses his fingers. “I’m hopeful.”

____________

 

This is how they see each other, deliberately, for the first time in a week:

Connor rings the doorbell. Chads S. and R. open it, stare at him, glance at each other, stare some more, and then let him inside.

“Oh,” Blake says. He looks close to how he did in those early days when they didn’t know each other, a little wary and hard but interested despite himself. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Connor says, slipping his hand into the back pocket of his best jeans. “I’ve realized something.”

Blake crosses his arms. “Do you want to go somewhere quieter?”

He considers that a second. Then, purposefully, he says, “No. I’d like to be loud today, with you. If you’re up for it.”

“Goose coming in hot right out the gate,” one of the Chads mutters. 

Connor shrugs. “Decided to be a little more upfront about what I want.”

“Look, I like you,” Blake says. He fists his hand in his hair and pulls gently. “A lot. I can’t — I won’t do anything with you if you’re looking for me to just.” He takes a deep breath. “I need some way to know you trust me enough to catch you, to know you’ll do the same for me.”

“I mentioned you to three guys on my team,” Connor says. Blake freezes. “Not by name, they don’t know you’re on the lax team, but. They know I have a boyfriend. Think I’d like to be louder about that too, if you’ll let me.”

“What?” Blake asks softly. There’s a hint of a smile playing on the corner of his mouth. “Are you sure?”

Connor makes his way toward him slowly, giving him plenty of time to move away if he wants. “They’re going to the rugby party tonight,” he says, holding his hands palm up in the space between them. “I said I might see them there. You don’t have to, but I was kinda hoping you’d join me.”

“The one everyone gets arrested at,” Blake says with a mock frown. He takes Connor’s hands and squeezes. “You trying to get me arrested?”

“I have no doubt you’d look fantastic in handcuffs,” he says in response, and Blake turns as red and then redder than his hockey jersey. Connor breathes deep and something like relief pricks along his skin.

He waits by the front door while Blake grabs a jacket from his room. A few minutes later, his stomach swoops in the best way as his boyfriend comes down the stairs toward him and it’s silly to think this is the start of something when they’ve been dating for nearly a year, but every inch of him screams  _ this is it this is right this is the _ _beginning_ when Blake smiles at him .

____________

 

He pulls him closer and Blake puts his hands in his back pocket and hums his name against his lips.  _ Connor, _ here in the orange-flooded basement, people all around, loud as they can be without saying a word.  _ Connor _ riding the highs and lows of the music around them.  _ Connor _ underlying the moment Blake whispers  _ I love you _ and kisses him sweeter, one hand cupping his face. 

Blake kisses like they have all the time they need. Today, caught up in the beauty of being named and unnamed and renamed perfectly, Connor lets himself believes it.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be ~2k give or take but here we are
> 
> I have a Lot of emotions about this update and purposefully chose to stop this fic before we got to That Scene; I have theories about what went down afterward, but I wanna believe Whiskey is actively working through things 
> 
> Thanks for reading :) I'm on tumblr, [come say hi!](http://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com)


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